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KitKat has severed its ties with Fairtrade, despite the organisation behind the scheme warning that thousands of farmers would be hit by the move. The boss of Fairtrade said Nestle's decision to cut its 10-year association with the non-profit organisation was "profoundly disappointing".

The Swiss-owned food giant said it would now source its cocoa for KitKat bars from farms on Rainforest Alliance terms instead of those working with Fairtrade accreditation.

Nestle, which already uses Rainforest Alliance-certified farmers on other bars such as Aero and Yorkie, said it would start the new partnership for KitKat from October.

The Fairtrade label guarantees that the farmers behind a product get a set minimum price as well as a financial bonus, and is seen a on a wide range of products including chocolate, coffee and bananas.

Michael Gidney, chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, said its cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast were "devastated" by the news. "It would never be good news, but to face this when the country is looking at one of the worst health crises imaginable makes things particularly difficult," he said.

"Nestle's relationship with farmers in Ivory Coast has been able to make a huge difference to village communities, helping them to receive electricity and water pumps. The decision is a huge blow."

Simon Billington, global technical manager for Nestle Confectionery, said the firm was aware that "the move will have an impact on some farmers", but said it was "working hard" to mitigate this.

The company said it would provide financial support to help its farmers to certify with the Rainforest Alliance if they wished. Nestle said its decision had not been taken to save money and that it would spend the same amount on cocoa from its farmers over the next year. It said it would also invest in a series of initiatives to support farmers and communities.

Billington added: "Our expanded partnership with the Rainforest Alliance underlines our commitment to sustainable cocoa sourcing throughout our global supply chain. Our successful partnership with Fairtrade is ending as we harmonise our certification for sustainable sourcing internationally."

In 2017, Sainsbury's announced it was moving away from Fairtrade labelling for its own-brand tea and would use its own scheme to guarantee a good price to farmers.

Other companies have also left the scheme and set up their own alternatives.

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'Profoundly disappointing': KitKat cuts ties with Fairtrade

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KitKat has severed its ties with Fairtrade, despite the organisation behind the scheme warning that thousands of farmers would be hit by the move. The boss of Fairtrade said Nestle's decision to cut its 10-year association with the non-profit organisation was "profoundly disappointing".

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1.2 billion people in the world lack clean drinking water. Pakistan may run out of water by 2025, while 15 out of 21 million Nigerians have no clean water access. In North America, Flint, Michigan residents will not have clean drinking water until 2020, while California is in a seemingly permanent drought. Why then, are these regions' governments selling natural water resources to Nestle, a private, European corporation, which then bottles and sells the water? In case you didn't know, Nestle is literally hoarding water from around the world to bottle and sell for a huge profit - in Pakistan, Africa, even in the United States. Nestle got the memo that clean, natural water resources are drying out, and they are buying them up (for as little as $200). Ironically, the communities that live the closest to their water plants are suffering the most.

Of course, the worst affected are the already poor and hungry regions of the world, like Lahore, Pakistan. Nestle's Pakistan plant was censured for not providing drinking water to the local community in 2015. In 2013, reports came that thousands of Pakistanis in the Bhati Diwan village were getting sick by being forced to drink sludge water, as Nestle drained their water supply for their bottled water. Dirty drinking water causes malaria, even death. Nestle was actually selling this water back to Pakistanis while denying the citizens access to it. Since 1998, Nestle has been selling Pure Life bottled water in Lahore, planting doubt in the region about the tap water's cleanliness, and leading the government to neglect the cleanliness of the tap water. Similarly, many North Americans, including myself, now reach for a water bottle and are hesitate to drink tap water.

We often see heartbreaking photos of children in Africa walking for miles to fill a bucket of clean water. Nestle has been buying out water resources in Nigeria for the past 50 years, according to Premium Times. In fact, Bloomberg reports water shortages in Nigeria have killed more people than Boko Haram (approximately 7,000). This problem is not unique to developing countries: activists and communities are fighting Nestle for water in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Specifically, in Michigan, 100,000 residents only have access to poisonous drinking water. Since 2014, 12,000 children were exposed to lead, and 10 people have died. They have to drink bottled water until 2020... but did you know that Michigan's governor (who has personal ties to Nestle), sold Michigan's clean water reserves for Nestle's private use?

At least in the majority of situations, these modernized, rich countries have successful resources and funding to successfully fight sneaky corporations, while villagers in places such as Pakistan, Nigeria, are voiceless, defenceless, and worse yet, completely unaware.

The world's water shortage is serious, but it's preventable.

Corporations like Nestle need to stop hoarding water; and city, state, and national governments and institutions need to stop selling it to them. If you have not heard anything lately about this crisis, it's because of Nestle propaganda. After effective campaigns by watchdog groups SumofUS.org and MoveOn in 2013, public outcry led Nestle to drown media headlines with their 'philanthropic' efforts. But why would countries filled with natural water resources need a European corporation to give them bottled water? Is it because that foreign company owns all of theirs? Governments motivated by funding and industrial growth sell water resources to Nestle but ignore the harmful effects on their communities.

If you really want to help Muslims in developing countries, boycott Nestle. Don't buy Nestle water bottles, which include Nestle Pure Life, Poland Spring, Arrowhead and Crystal Geyser. Let your work, masjid, and favourite restaurant know why they should stop selling Nestle water bottles. Don't drink the water bottles at these establishments (I'm happy to see recycling cans at masjids, but it hurts my eyes to see Nestle water bottles in them). Lastly, boycott other Nestle products which include but are not limited to, Perrier, CoffeeMate, Carnation, TollHouse, Gerber, Dreyers, and Haagen Dazs.

It's time for BDS II: the Nestle Edition. Western Muslims are instrumental in procuring a change in Muslim countries. We are organized, communicative, and resourceful, and we know we owe our less privileged brothers and sisters attention and funds in exchange for the comfort we are blessed with. Prioritize fair water resourcing on your list of charity projects. Like oil and blood diamonds, water is simply the latest resource being manipulated from Islamic and developing countries by Western countries. Nestle is a consumer-driven company that is motivated by sales. If we stop buying, or stop drinking, they will listen.

References and further reading:

1. Nestlé: don't bottle Nigerians' water in a catastrophic water crisis!

2. Over 215,000 Demand Nestlé Stop Draining Poor Villages in Pakistan for Bottled Water

3. Nestlé Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For

4. While Flint drinks poison, Nestlé is pumping 200 gallons of fresh water out of Michigan every minute

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Here's how Nestle is leaving millions in Pakistan, Nigeria and Flint without clean water

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1.2 billion people in the world lack clean drinking water. Pakistan may run out of water by 2025, while 15 out of 21 million Nigerians have no clean water access. In North America, Flint, Michigan residents will not have clean drinking water until 2020, while California is in a seemingly permanent drought.

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Child labor, unethical promotion, manipulating uneducated mothers, pollution, price fixing and mislabeling - those are not words you want to see associated with your company. Nestle is the world's largest foodstuff company, and it has a history that would make even hardcore industrialists shiver. We're gonna look at why Nestle has such a bad reputation and whether or not it deserves it.

Introduction

People love to hate, and they really love to hate on big companies - whether or not they have a reason to. I especially dislike it when the latter happens. Companies (big companies included) are the very backbone of our economy, and they often get a bad rep for little or no reason. But sometimes there is a reason, or as in this case, several solid reasons, as we'll see below. Which brings me to the next point: why are we writing this article? ZME Science is a science website (crazy, right?), and this is not strictly science, at least not in the way our regular articles are. But we also write about environmental issues, especially when they affect many of us, and especially when we can make a difference.

Nestle is a Swiss multinational food and beverage company. According to Wikipedia, their products include baby food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee and tea, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, frozen food, pet foods, and snacks. Twenty-nine of their brands have sales of over $1 billion a year and have over 8,000 brands. They have 447 factories across 194 countries and employ around 333,000 people. They truly are what you would call a giant. They're also considered to be one of the best employers in Europe with six LEED certifications and sponsor numerous activities and sustainable projects. Looking at only these stats, it would seem that Nestle is one of the "good guys"... but then why are they so hated? Let's take it step by step.

Baby Formula and Boycott

We're in the '90s, and this is a sad story about poverty, breastfeeding, and greed. Nestle aggressively pushed their breastfeeding formula in less economically developed countries (LEDCs), specifically targeting the poor. They made it seem that their infant formula was almost as good as a mother's milk, which is highly unethical for several reasons.

The first problem was the need for water sanitation. Most of the groups they were targeting - especially in Africa - didn't have access to clean water (many don't to this day), so it was necessary for them to boil the water. But due to low literacy rates, many mothers were not aware of this, so they mixed the formula with polluted water which put the children at great risks. Nestle seems to have knowingly ignored this and encouraged mothers to use the formula even when they knew the risks. Breastfeeding, one of the most important aspects for an infant, especially in unsanitized areas, was cast aside. Baby formula was "the nearest thing in the world", and this "splendid triumph of care and science" is "so like mother's milk that the tiny stomach won't notice the difference". But the tiny stomach did notice the difference.

"Breastfeeding is unparalleled in providing the ideal food for infants.The optimal way to feed a baby is exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months followed by breastfeeding combined with complementary foods until the child is two years old..." - a 2007 Save the Children report.

Many mothers were able to read in their native language but were still unable to read the language in which sterilization directions were written. Even if mothers understood the need to boil the water, they might not have had the facilities to do so. UNICEF estimates that a formula-fed child living in disease-ridden and unhygienic conditions is between 6 and 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea and four times more likely to die of pneumonia than a breastfed child. Another problem was that mothers tended to use less formula than needed - to make the jar last longer, resulting in many infants receiving inadequate amounts.

But even if the water was boiled, and even if the formula was administered in the right proportion and in the right quantity, it is lacking in many of the nutrients and antibodies that breast milk provides. Breast milk contains the required amount of the nutrients essential for neuronal (brain and nerve) development, and to some extent, protects the baby from many diseases and potential infections. According to the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), Nestle used unethical methods to promote their infant formula to poor mothers in developing countries. But it gets even worse.

IBFAN claims that Nestle distributes free formula samples to hospitals and maternity wards; after leaving the hospital, the formula is no longer free, but because the supplementation has interfered with lactation, the family must continue to buy the formula. Nestle denies those allegations... sort of.

"Nestlé takes reports on non-compliance with the WHO Code very seriously and we have endeavored to investigate all allegations brought to our attention, despite the fact that in many cases we are not provided with accurate details substantiating the accusations. This makes it difficult for us to investigate how, where and when the alleged infringement could have occurred. Some of the allegations are several years old before they are brought to public attention, which also could complicate the investigation."

Health experts were concerned from the very start. It's been known for quite a while that bottle-feeding infants in impoverished tropical environments, with limited sanitation and refrigeration, can be a recipe for disaster. But Nestlé's asked that critics should focus on doing something to improve unsafe water supplies, which contributed to the health problems associated with bottle feeding. They also later used this approach to promote their bottled water, using their huge marketing budget to influence people's behavior, while avoiding denying any direct responsibility.

Today, several countries and organizations are still boycotting Nestle, despite their claims to be in compliance with WHO regulations. There's even a committee, the International Nestlé Boycott Committee that monitors their practices. Several universities and student organizations have also joined the boycott, especially in the UK.

More recently, the company has also been under head for a study on breastmilk substitutes in India. India's apex medical research authority asked the company to stop paying study participants, which included pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.

It's not clear how many lives that were lost directly and indirectly due to this aggressive marketing campaign, and of course, Nestle does not claim responsibility for these tragedies. But it was easy for them, as it was easy for everybody to see the risks and the negative effects their formula was having. It was easy for them to save many lives, but they chose the money instead. Profits before children -- check. Let's move on.

Nestle and Water

Few people know it, but Nestle is actually the world's largest producer of bottled water. In fact, they're so keen on their water business (which also involves many of their other products), that they believe water isn't a universal right. Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said:

"There are two different opinions on the matter [or water]. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That's an extreme solution."

Having access to water is not an extreme solution. It's what we have called a basic need for centuries. Even Brabeck, after the media attack that followed, backed down. He said that he "believes that water is a human right" and "advocates for universal access to safe drinking water". But his actions, as well as Nestle's actions, show that that's just greenwashing.

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At the second World Water Forum in 2000, Nestle pushed for making access to drinking water from a "right" to a "need," a defining change. Meanwhile, Nestle drains the aquifers it controls as much as possible, without any regards to sustainable usage or environmental concerns. A recent case is the California drought - an issue without precedent in the past 1,200 years. But Nestle doesn't care. Even as Starbucks recently announced they would transfer their Ethos water bottling facility from California to Pennsylvania, Nestle CEO Tim Brown said: "Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase [water bottling operations], I would."

Yes, if he could, he'd increase water bottling operations, even though Nestle has been working without a permit since 1988. Inhabitat reports that the company has been sourcing its water from the San Bernardino National Forest without a permit and they've been recently been bumped to the front of the queue for permit renewal (which will take around 18 months), and they can keep working in the meantime as long as they pay a laughable $524 annual fee. Also, California doesn't know how much water Nestle uses, because they have no legal grounds for making the company divulge this information, and Nestle hasn't published any reports. An independent analysis puts all their water usage at 1 billion gallons a year.

Arguably, that's not much when you considering that 500 billion gallons of water that will be saved under Gov. Brown's new water restrictions, but there's something absurd and immoral about a private company using as much water as they want while the rest of the state is facing severe restrictions.

But other areas in the world have it even worse than California.

In the small Pakistani community of Bhati Dilwan, a former village councilor says children are being sickened by filthy water. Who's to blame? He says it's bottled water maker Nestle, which dug a deep well that is depriving locals of potable water.

"The water is not only very dirty, but the water level sank from 100 to 300 to 400 feet," Dilwan says. (source)

Indeed, unsustainable usage of aquifer water can lead to a significant decrease in water levels, and can even exhaust the aquifer. That's right, underground water isn't the inexhaustible source many people believe it to be. In the case of Bhati Dilwan, people are getting sick because if the community had fresh water piped in, it would deprive Nestle of its money source - bottled water under the Pure Life brand. Greedily using natural resources for profits? Check.

But when Nestle isn't trying to privatize water or use it without regards to the environment, it's simply bottling... tap water. A Chicago-based business has sued the company (again), claiming that the five gallon jugs of Ice Mountain Water they bought were nothing else than tap water. It may come as a shock to you, but nearly half of the bottled water in PET plastic bottles is actually from a tap - though Nestle never advertised this. They know what's likely going to happen though, as this is almost a dress rehearsal of a previous scandal. Twelve years ago Nestle Waters was sued over allegation of false labeling, and ultimately settled for $10 million in charitable contributions and discounts.

More recently, Nestle expressed their concern to the city of Flint, Michigan, which was undergoing a massive water crisis at the time -- a crisis which still takes a toll to this day. Meanwhile, the company was using nearby water reserves for their own bottled water products. Nestle was bottling hundreds of thousands of bottles, paying only $200 to use this natural reserve.

Child labor, abuse, and trafficking

Most people love chocolate, but few know the dirty deals behind chocolate production. The 2010 documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate brought attention to purchases of cocoa beans from Ivorian plantations that use child slave labour. The children are usually 12 to 15 years old, and some are trafficked from nearby countries - and Nestle is no stranger to this practice.

In 2005, the cocoa industry was, for the first time, under the spotlight. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit against Nestle (among others) on behalf of three Malian children. The suit alleged the children were trafficked to Côte d'Ivoire, forced into slavery, and experienced frequent beatings on a cocoa plantation. In 2010, the US District Court for the Central District of California determined corporations cannot be held liable for violations of international law and dismissed the suit - a controversial decision which has since been appealed. But even if Nestle wasn't legally liable for these abuses, they are, at least morally. But that wasn't the only case of this kind.

A report by an independent auditor, the Fair Labor Association (FLA), says it found "multiple serious violations" of the company's own supplier code. It was reported that Nestle hadn't carried out checks against child labor and abuse. Additionally, many injuries caused by machetes, which are used to harvest cocoa pods, have been reported. Nestle's excuse can be summed up broadly as 'everybody does it':

"The use of child labour in our cocoa supply chain goes against everything we stand for," says Nestle's Executive Vice-President for Operations Jose Lopez. "No company sourcing cocoa from the Ivory Coast can guarantee that it doesn't happen, but we can say that tackling child labour is a top priority for our company."

The FLA reported that Nestle was fully aware of where their cocoa was coming from and under what conditions, but did little to improve conditions. Child slavery and abuse? Check.

Health Threats

In July 2009, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned consumers to avoid eating any varieties of prepackaged Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough due to risk of contamination with E. coli O157:H7 (a foodborne bacterium that causes illness). In the US, it caused sickness in more than 50 people in 30 states, half of whom required hospitalization. In particular, one woman had a fatal infection before the batch was reclaimed.

"The fact that our product was implicated in Linda Rivera's 2009 illness and tragic passing was obviously of grave concern to all of us at Nestle," the company said in a statement. "Since then, we have implemented more stringent testing and inspection of raw materials and finished product to ensure the product meets our high quality standards," which sort of makes you wonder - why weren't stringent testing and inspections implemented in the first place?

But this is just a minor incident compared to the 2008 Chinese Milk Scandal. Six infants were killed and 860 were hospitalized with kidney problems after Nestle products were contaminated with melamine, a substance sometimes illegally added to food products to increase their apparent protein content.

In October 2008, Taiwan Health ministry announced that six types of milk powders produced in China by Nestlé contained low-level traces of melamine and were removed from the shelves.

The scandal quickly escalated, with China reporting over 300,000 victims, raising concerns about the security of major food companies operating in China. Two people were executed and several life prison sentences were issued, with the World Health Organization (WHO) referring to the incident as one of the largest food safety events it has had to deal with in recent years.

Nestle denied implication and claimed that all its products are clean, but the Taiwan government linked their products to toxic melamine. As a response, Nestle says it has sent 20 specialists from Switzerland to five of its Chinese plants to strengthen chemical testing.

As with any "respectable" large company, Nestle has been involved in several incidents regarding pollution. A 1997 report found that in the UK, over a 12 month period, water pollution limits were breached 2,152 times in 830 locations by companies that included Cabdury and Nestle. But again, the situation in China was much worse.

While people in the US and Europe are slowly becoming more environmentally concerned and some are opting for more sustainable sources of water, Nestle has moved to another market - Asia. Alongside companies such as Kraft or Shell, Nestle made several environmental violations.

Nestle Sources Shanghai Ltd's bottled water manufacturing plant also made the list for starting operation before its wastewater treatment facilities had passed an environmental impact assessment.

"These are only some of the water pollution violations committed by multinational companies in China, since our website has yet to cover information about air and solid waste pollution," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs. "The parent companies in their home countries are models for environmental protection. But they have slackened their efforts in China."

Another article claims that Nestle capitalizes on China's already-polluted waters to make a good profit, while Corporate Watch highlights the fact that Nestle continues to extract water illegally from Brazil for their Perrier brand. Although Nestlé lost the legal action, pumping continues as it gets through the appeal procedures, something which can take ten years or more.

Ethiopian Debt

In 2002, Nestle made what turned out to be a colossal error: demanding that Ethiopia pay them back a debt of US$6 million. There's nothing wrong with that per se... if Ethiopia wasn't facing extreme famine at the time. For a company that has 29 brands that make over $1 billion a year, asking a famine-stricken country to pay you back 6 million seems questionable, to say the least.

Nestle's claim dates back to the 1970s when the military regime in Addis Ababa seized the assets of foreign companies.

The public roar came almost overnight; with the company receiving 40,000 letters from outraged people, in one of the most famous cases of public opinion beat corporate greed. In the end, Nestle took a U-turn, settling for a partial debt which was also invested in the country's bouncing back from famine. For Nestle, who initially insisted that the compensation issue was "a matter of principle" and that it was in the best interest of Addis Ababa to settle the demand to repair its record with foreign investors, it was a huge moral defeat. For analysts, it was an exciting case which showed that even giants can falter in the face of public opinion.

"This is a welcome result because it shows that Nestle is not immune to public pressure," said Phil Bloomer, a senior policy analyst.

A Deal With Mugabe

Striking dubious partnerships to make a profit seems to be a recurring theme. The Swiss multinational made a deal with the wife of the infamous dictator from Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, buying 1 million liters of milk a year from a farm seized from its rightful owners by Grace Mugabe

Grace has taken over at least six of Zimbabwe's most valuable white-owned farms since 2002, building a farming empire from illegally confiscated farms, which led to an international boycott, as well as EU and US sanctions. She is known for her ridiculously lavish lifestyle, which includes overseeing the construction of two luxuriant castles. In 2014, she was given a doctorate diploma only three months after signing up for the program. Nestle went forward with the deal though, even as the country's agriculture-based economy was collapsing and inflation was reaching unheard of levels.

Price Fixing

In Canada, the Competition Bureau raided the offices of Nestlé Canada (along with those of Hershey Canada Inc. and Mars Canada Inc) in an investigation on price fixing. Nestlé and the other companies were subject to class-action lawsuits and ultimately settled for $9 million, without actually admitting liability. Furthermore, former president and chief executive officer of Nestle Canada is facing criminal charges.

In the US, another, larger trial was rejected, because even though it was plausible that the same thing happened in the US, there was no clear evidence of any foul play. The suspicion remained however and still lingers with the company.

Promoting Unhealthy Food and Mislabeling

That Nestle is promoting unhealthy food should come as no surprise, but the level at which they operate it is simply staggering. A recent report by the UK Consumers Association claims that 7 out of the 15 breakfast cereals with the highest levels of sugar, fat, and salt were Nestle products.

"Nestlé claims to be 'the world's leading nutrition, health, and wellness company', but when it comes to food marketing to kids, Nestlé is a laggard, not a leader," said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan.

Nestle dismissed all responsibility in promoting healthy food. To pour even more salt in the foods wound, mister Brabeck came out with a dismissive interview in the Telegraph, claiming that he is not obese yet 'every morning I have a tablet of dark chocolate as my breakfast' and that it is the perfect balance and contains everything he needs for the day. Hey, after all, who would actually think that Nestle's cereals are healthy, right?

But while Nestle's labels aren't simply misleading, they have also been downright false. In November 2002, police ordered Nestle Colombia to decommission 200 tons of imported powdered milk, because they were falsely relabeled, not only as a different, local brand, but also with a different production date. A month later another 120 tons suffered the same fate, causing uproar among the Colombian population.

Nestle bringing old powdered milk from a different country and labeling as local and new is not only unethical and illegal, but it poses health hazards for consumers.

Drawing the Line

All major companies have incidents, accidents and scandals. When you have so many people working for you, it's virtually impossible to maintain a clean sheet. Someone will eventually screw up, someone will eventually do something they should. As I was preparing to write this article, a friend actually asked me if other companies don't have a similar record, and advised me to look at Mars, for example. What I found was that Mars and other big companies have indeed had their share of scandals (sometimes the same ones as Nestle), but not nearly on the same scale. Nestle has shown, time and time again, that they have few ethics and little interest in a real social responsibility. From promoting their formula to uneducated African mothers to lying about production dates, to using water without a permit to dealing with ruthless dictators, they have often gone the extra mile to make an extra profit - even when the extra mile meant hurting people, directly or indirectly.

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Why Nestle is one of the most hated companies in the world

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Child labor, unethical promotion, manipulating uneducated mothers, pollution, price fixing and mislabeling - those are not words you want to see associated with your company. Nestle is the world's largest foodstuff company, and it has

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Nestle CEO: Water Is Not A Human Right, Should Be Privatized | Aarhus Clearinghouse

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Is water a free and basic human right, or should all the water on the planet belong to major corporations and be treated as a product? Should the poor who cannot afford to pay these said corporations suffer from starvation due to their lack of financial wealth? According to the former CEO and now Ch…

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Business ethics are the guidelines a company uses when interacting with entities inside and outside the company. The purpose of ethics is to create a conscious effort to treat people and companies with respect and establish a positive working environment. Inc. states that the importance of ethics and ethical practices in business can extend well beyond basic compliance considerations. A strong code of ethics can benefit a company financially and they can also help a company gain the elements it needs to grow.

A business is seen as a single entity by its vendors, the community, its employees and other corporations. The actions of the company, and not the actions of any single individual, dictate how the company is perceived by others. A code of ethics ensures that the company presents a unified image and maintains a standardized positive image among all of the internal and external elements it will come into contact with. According to Investopedia, ethics are important across industries at the leadership and employee levels.

Sexual harassment, discrimination and hazardous working conditions are regulated by state and federal governments. A company that violates employment laws and standards can find itself facing fines, lawsuits and injunctions that can cause work to stop. A company's ethical practices include developing strict guidelines for adhering to employment laws and avoiding the problems that violating these laws can create.

A company's ethical business practices give the organization a positive professional reputation among vendors, clients and potential business partners. Good business ethics can help create strong business relationships that result in lower product costs, repeat business from customers and sources of financing for company growth. Maintaining good ethics sustains these strong business relationships for the benefit of the company and its business contacts.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a hot topic in business today. Consumers increasingly want to know that they are dealing with ethical businesses and purchasing ethically produced products. This can provide powerful marketing or PR for a business that includes ethical practices. Companies can gain media coverage by implementing new socially responsible practices. Many companies engaged in CSR make their ethical practices as central to their overall brand which can lead to word of mouth marketing.

Employee turnover can be damaging to a small business. A company comes to rely on the staff it has in place, and having to train new employees due to staff turnover can become expensive and disrupt growth. The ethical treatment of employees is a key element in retaining employees and reducing the effects of turnover.

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The Purpose of Ethical Practices in Business

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The Purpose of Ethical Practices in Business. Business ethics are the guidelines a company uses when interacting with entities inside and outside the company. It is a conscious effort to treat people and companies with respect and establish a positive working environment. The effects of ethical practices in business ...

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How ethical are our food companies? | CNN Business

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Love that chocolate Haagen-Dazs ice-cream? But what about the way its makers treat their farmers? How about KitKat and the way its production impacts the environment?

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This story is part of a group of stories called

Finding the best ways to do good.

For every new egg-laying hen born into today's factory farming system, a male chick is killed - or "culled." As many as 300 million chicks are killed in the United States every year, and more than 6 billion total are killed around the world.

It's a disturbing and wasteful practice, and it has its roots in the warped economics of chicken production.

Most chicken meat comes from "broiler" chickens, bred to grow unnaturally big and fast. That is not the case with egg-laying hens, which have been bred to put all their energy toward laying. Consequently, when their egg output begins to wane, they have so little meat on them that they often don't enter the human food supply and are instead used as pet food, feed for other factory-farmed animals, or simply "landfilled." This is why egg producers cull male chicks: The males from the leaner breeds used in egg production cost more to feed and house than they would ever sell for as meat, so they're economically useless to the industry.

Animal welfare activists have been lobbying against male chick culling for decades, chronicling cute and fuzzy day-old chicks who are gassed or macerated. The thing is, the industry doesn't like the practice either - it's inefficient and wasteful, even before accounting for the bad PR. The alternative would be to develop in-ovo sexing technology - technology that can determine the sex of a chicken before it hatches -stopping the incubation process for males before they even come out of their shells and eliminating the need for a wasteful culling operation.

In 2016, the United Egg Producers (UEP), a lobbying group for the egg industry, announced that it was hoping to fund the development of such technology and committed to ending male chick cullingby 2020.

It was big news. Vox even referred to it as " the best news for America's animals in decades." But 2020 came and went, and chick culling continues unabated.

In July 2020, the UEP put out a statement saying it was still looking for "an economically feasible, commercially viable alternative to the practice of male chick culling at hatcheries." It added, "We believe this goal is achievable with time and research," but it didn't offer a new timeline for the goal or elaborate on what issues still had to be worked out.

USPoultry - an umbrella organization representing various egg and poultry trade groups, including the UEP - has put roughly $100,000 toward research grants for startups and researchers looking to end chick culling. Other than that, the egg industry has not made any additional support for this project public, and the UEP would not answer questions outside of its statements.

Meanwhile, in Europe, two companies are already sexing chicks in their shells and selling limited quantities of no-cull eggs in grocery stores in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and other European countries. So what's taking the United States so long?

The problem is the technology

There are roughly 336 million laying hens in the United States. For in-ovo sexing to stop the bulk of male chick culling, it likely would need to be able to sex close to a billion eggs per year (taking into account unfertilized eggs and male chicks).

But despite the fact that people have been speaking out about it for decades, there still isn't a viable way to humanely avoid chick culling at the scale the industry requires.

The Humane League (THL), a nonprofit that lobbies corporations to make animal welfare changes, was involved in getting the UEP to promise an end to chick culling back in 2016. David Coman-Hidy, THL's president, says that he doesn't see any evidence that the US egg industry is dragging its feet.

However, he does acknowledge there's certainly a history of the agriculture industry saying better animal welfare - like phasing out the use of battery cages in the egg industry or gestation crates in the pork industry - wouldn't be commercially viable until consumers and corporations demanded it.

"The difference here is that this is actually a technological problem," Coman-Hidy says. "We don't need to develop the technology of 'don't put hens in battery cages.' That technology exists. It's called a barn. But sexing these eggs at a really young age is complicated."

To see just how complicated it is, it helps to understand how the technologies already in use in Europe work and why their shortcomings make them a nonstarter for US egg producers and animal welfare activists.

The European companies selling no-cull eggs in local supermarkets - Agri Advanced Technologies (Agri-AT) and Respeggt GmbH - use different approaches to address the same problem.

Respeggt-branded eggs use an endocrinological gender identification technology that's somewhat similar to a human pregnancy test. Eight to 10 days after incubation, a machine takes a sample of liquid from each fertilized egg and looks for the presence of a female hormone by looking for a color-changing reaction. Male eggs are then used for animal feed and the females continue toward hatching.

All the eggs produced by hens sexed with this technology are sold under the Respeggt brand, free from chick culling. It can currently test one egg per second or at most 31.5 million eggs per year (if run continuously). According to Kristin Höller, Respeggt's head of business development and global affairs, by the time the cost is passed on to consumers, they've seen an increase of about 1 to 2 cents per egg. They have not yet tried to sell the technology to the US egg industry but, even if they did, the volume it can handle is currently too low for this technology to be used to get rid of chick culling across the board.

The other company, Agri-AT, tests eggs using hyperspectral measurement that essentially scans the colors inside the egg. This method is much faster than Respeggt's: Its machine can sex 20,000 eggs per hour or at most 175.2 million a year (if run continuously). But a big drawback is that it only works on brown-egg-laying chicken breeds where male and female chicks are different colors when they hatch. Since most egg-laying hens in the US only lay white eggs, Agri-AT's technology can't be used at scale here.

Jörg Hurlin, managing director at Agri-AT, said that they don't yet know how much their technology would cost the consumer, though it will certainly add to the cost of eggs.

One issue that complicates these efforts is the difficult-to-answer question of when an embryo becomes a chick. Some researchers say day seven is when chick embryos can begin to experience pain. If that's right, sexing the eggs eight to 10 days after incubation as Respeggt does, and 14 days as Agri-AT does, may still end up inflicting pain on the embryo, which could be trading one animal welfare problem - culling - for another. (However, Agri-AT did develop another machine they call "STUNNY" that uses electricity to anesthetize the eggs, eliminating any potential pain in stopping their development.)

The embryo problem is one that the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), a US-based agricultural research organization, is attempting to address. FFAR is sponsoring something called the Egg-Tech prize, which will award up to $6 million to researchers producing promising methods of ending chick culling. The group is hoping for a technology that can be used at scale and implemented before day eight of incubation, at which point there's evidence the chicks experience sensation.

There's one other technological solution being pursued that's worth noting here. At the University of Georgia, Kristen Navara has been researching the potential of finding a way to control and change the sex of chicks before they even hatch.

In chickens, the hen controls whether the resulting chick is male or female. Using hormonal treatments, Navara can change the sex of an egg. Because the Food and Drug Administration bans the poultry industry from using hormones, Navara explains, the hope is that knowing what pathways those hormones operate on might allow her to find and manipulate a gene that could, for example, permanently make all laying-breed chicks female.

If it works, it could be an even more economical option than in-ovo sexing. Not only would chick culling end but hatcheries wouldn't "lose" half of all fertilized eggs that would have hatched into males.

All in all, the picture that's emerging on egg-culling is one of promising innovation - and a recognition that progress has been much too slow.

Another way to end chick culling: Raise other chicken breeds

In-ovo sexing might be the solution to end chick culling that's gotten the most attention from the egg industry, but it's not the only one. Hatcheries could also go back to how chickens were bred pre-factory farming - which would do away with culling, period.

Until the early 1900s, farmers didn't worry too much over whether their chickens were male or female. Hens were raised as egg layers while the roosters were the first ones to become Sunday dinner. Some breeds were slightly more suited to one purpose over the other, but did both reasonably well.

So-called "dual-production" breeds like the Rhode Island Red could lay 250-300 eggs per year (a huge improvement over the average chicken's 80 eggs) and after five months the 6- to 8-pound males could be sold for meat. At the beginning of the 20th century, the birds were considered a marvel.

Then the poultry industry changed. Up through the 1930s, raising chickens tended to happen on small farms mostly run by women. What we have now would be unrecognizable to those farmers: highly specialized and mechanized factory-style farms with chicken breeds that do one thing or the other very well.

Today, broiler chickens - the ones raised for meat - are slaughtered at just seven weeks old, having already reached 6.5 pounds; high-production egg layers produce about 300 eggs each per year. This has made poultry production extremely efficient, but at the cost of animal welfare. Factory-farmed meat chickens suffer chronic pain and have a lot of joint and movement problems, while most egg layers live out their lives in small cages, are unable to express natural behaviors like nesting, and can suffer from bone weakness and breakage.

"The [egg industry's] hope is to get a cheap sexing alternative and continue on this crazy route of having two completely different birds for different purposes," says Mahi Klosterhalfen, CEO of the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, which focuses on farm animal welfare issues in Germany. While he, too, wants to see the end of chick culling, Klosterhalfen would rather see farmers return to the dual-purpose breeds of the past.

"The laying hens wouldn't have such extreme numbers of eggs they have to lay and broilers wouldn't grow so fast they can't move around after a couple of weeks," he says.

This would make all chicken products considerably more expensive than they are today (chicken is really cheap, though, so even if it got more expensive it still likely wouldn't be pricier than even the least expensive cuts of beef or pork).

But if a return to a pastoral era of raising chickens seems implausible, the practice of male chick culling continues to be a moral problem. Six billion chicks gassed or macerateda year is a lot.

And for all its horribleness, culling has received surprisingly little public attention. When the UEP announced in 2016 they were going to stop the practice, consumers were shocked to hear that the practice existed at all. "We started getting calls from reporters immediately asking if it was true that [the egg industry] did this," the Humane League's Coman-Hidy says. "It's one of the most grotesque corners of factory farming."

Between the financial motivation and the specter of public attention turning to this issue again, he believes in-ovo sexing will happen as soon as technically possible. He may be right. But while the technology to fix the problem may be coming soon, the broader questions that chick culling raises - what we're willing to do to animals in the name of low prices; what we're willing to do to animals, period - still loom before us.
Tove K. Danovich is a writer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in the Ringer, Eater, and the New York Times, among other outlets.

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Why the US egg industry is still killing 300 million chicks a year

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Finding the best ways to do good. For every new egg-laying hen born into today's factory farming system, a male chick is killed - or "culled." As many as 300 million chicks are killed in the United States every year, and more than 6 billion total are killed around the world.

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MOUNTAIN LAKES, New Jersey - Purchasing habits have power, and companies realize this. The ethics-based marketing of products reflects growing anxieties over the nature of these habits and their impact on the planet.

Marketing is one thing, action is another. Many unethical companies remain deeply ingrained in our purchasing culture, and they have done so through skilled marketing and public relations. In an era of global concern, these companies use this public relations expertise to maintain wholesome images while continuing to violate human rights.

A part of the problem is identifying companies which are a part of the problem. The next is identifying companies which are a part of the solution. Focusing on food and beverages, here are three companies to avoid, and three to give your business instead.

Avoid: Nestlé

Nestlé is notorious for its abuse of the global poor as a part of its bottled water, baby formula, chocolate and coffee. Though there have been attempts in recent years to market Nestlé as a wholesome, and even progressive company, the reality is that Nestlé remains one of the most flagrant violators of human rights worldwide.

The boycott against Nestlé for its misleading marketing of baby formula in the developing world which began in 1977 continues, perhaps the most notorious abuse of the global poor perpetrated by the company.

Rural communities, in particular, have suffered from the monopolization of their water resources by bottling plants for companies owned by Nestlé waters, which include Poland Springs, Deer Park, San Pellegrino, Poland Springs and Perrier among others. In 2013, Nestlé Chairman and former CEO Peter Brabek experienced a public relations nightmare when a 2005 video in which he stated that water is not a fundamental human right, and should be given market value, went viral.

Another abuse of the global poor perpetrated by Nestlé is the use of child slave labor in the creation of Nestlé owned chocolates. The majority of the company's chocolate is purchased from Côte d'Ivoire. In 2005, three individuals from Mali filed a lawsuit claiming that they were trafficked into the nation as children and forced to work fourteen hours a day in the 1990s. They documented such horrific human rights abuses as guards cutting open the feet of attempted escapees and children being forced to drink their own urine.

In 2014, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the case that Nestlé and fellow chocolate manufacturers Cargill and ADM could be held accountable for aiding and abetting child slavery overseas due to their tight control of the Ivorian cocoa market. This reversed a 2010 district court ruling which excused Nestlé and other companies from legal responsibilities for human rights violations overseas.

Alternative: Divine Chocolate

One alternative to chocolate made with slavery is simply purchasing organic chocolates, such as Newman's Own. And while these companies do not engage in the use of slave labor, their practices generally detach the product from developing world markets instead of changing the practices of the market to promote more humanitarian labor conditions.

Divine Chocolate is fair-trade certified and 44 percent owned by cacao farmers in Ghana. A Co-Op of farmers launched the product into the United Kingdom's market in October of 1998. There is a focus in the company's culture in promoting the empowerment of farmers, and particularly women farmers.

Divine Chocolate is far from the only chocolate producer trying to bring ethics to an industry which has grown notorious for abusive agricultural practices. A variety of brands offer Certified Fair Trade chocolate bars, spreads and baking chocolates which can be purchased in stores and online. However, the chocolate industry is one which demands careful research by the conscious consumer.

Avoid: Coca Cola

The Coca Cola company, which owns Honest Tea, Monster Energy Drinks and Simply brand juices among the myriad of sodas and other bottled beverages in its roster, is a prolific worldwide abuser of human rights.

Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Colombian Coca-Cola bottling plants were killed for protesting Coca-Cola's labor practices. Coca-Cola has also hired paramilitary forces to intimidate workers who have attempted to join the Colombian union SINALTRINAL.

Coca Cola also advocates for water privatization globally for the benefit of its Dasani and BonAqua brands. This privatization has caused heavy agricultural problems in India. In the state of Kerala, it also lead to health problems for the local population after what little water remained untouched by Coca-Cola became contaminated by high levels of chloride and bacteria.

The company was also sued for racially discriminatory practices in the United States in 2000, and remains notorious for marketing its nutritionally void brands to children around the world. Perhaps it's best to find a different way to quench your thirst this summer.

Alternative: Ubuntu Cola

In 2007, Ubuntu Cola became the first cola to receive Certified Fair Trade approval in the United Kingdom. Made with fair-trade cane sugar from Malawi and Zambia, the company emphasizes giving back to the communities and laborers in African communities who make the success of the company possible.

Along with the company's Certified Fair Trade status, which promotes ethical and sustainable farming methods in the developing world, the company also invests fifteen percent of its profits into the "Ubuntu Africa Program," an initiative which supports sugar producers and communities in Malawi along with supporting entrepreneurial initiatives to end Malawi.

The company's first project was the Elod's blog project. The project was an effort by the company to pay for the education of Malawian sugar cane farmer Elod in his pursuit to study rural development while working as a sugar cane farmer and raising a family. The project has since concluded, but Ubuntu Cola continues to be a company which is changing the world one community at a time.

Avoid: Starbucks

Starbucks is one of the most successful coffee companies in the world in terms of branding. And while Starbucks maintains a hipster-focused, trendy and bohemian aesthetic which suggests a company which is relatively innocent if slightly tacky, the reality of the company is far more disheartening.

Though Starbucks has taken efforts to ensure its coffee remains Certified Fair Trade, for instance, no such effort has been taken with Starbucks teas, nor has that effort been taken with Starbucks-owned Tazo Tea, though that brand is a part of the separate Ethical Tea Partnership.

Starbucks also attempted to block the Ethiopian government's effort to trademark several of the nation's famous coffee beans in an effort to protect the nation's coffee industry from the more colonialist elements of the global industry as a whole.

Starbucks further remains one of the most notorious union busting and tax-dodging companies worldwide, and regularly falls under fire for these practices. Ultimately, while Starbucks' friendly aesthetic is appealing, it is no more than an aesthetic.

Alternative: Equal Exchange

It is difficult to find a coffee shop chain with the sheer size and accessibility of Starbucks which maintains ethical practices, though readers in the United Kingdom are encouraged to visit the Soho Coffee company for this purpose. In the search for an ethical brand of ground coffee, however, Equal Exchange cannot be beat.

The only ground coffee brand to receive a perfect 20 out of 20 from ethicalconsumer.org, while Starbucks' Cafe Estima received a zero out of twenty rating, Equal Exchange sells Certified Fair Trade Coffee along with Certified Fair Trade Chocolate, Tea and Bananas. The company's emphasis on business ethics extends to its partnership with small co-ops in the developing world to create its products.

The company also supports the Congo Coffee Project. The Congo Coffee Project supports the Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Panzi Hospital offers valuable medical services and counseling to more than 2,000 survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo each year. So far, Equal Exchange has raised over fifty thousand dollars for the project, and remains a model of corporate citizenship.

Our purchasing habits have power. Money has power. And though companies relying solely on enriching their shareholders as the bottom line leads many to doubt the capabilities of this power for good, companies can also be a part of the solution. When citizens make more informed purchases that treat human well being not simply as equal to the bottom line, but an inherent aspect of achieving the bottom line, positive change is made possible. The challenge that remains is putting purchasing power into action.

- Andrew Michaels

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Ethical Consumerism: Companies to Avoid and Consider - BORGEN

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MOUNTAIN LAKES, New Jersey - Purchasing habits have power, and companies realize this. The ethics-based marketing of products reflects growing anxieties over the nature of these habits and their impact on the planet. Marketing is one thing, action is another.

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Palm Oil

Palm oil is an edible oil derived from the pulp of fruits of the oil palm. It is used in margarine, shortening, cooking oil, soups, sauces, crackers, and other baked goods. After soybean oil, it is the world's most widely used oil.

Bad Ethics: Palm oil plantations require a tremendous amount of deforestation and severe human injustice and suffering.

Replace With: coconut oil or babassu oil

Foie Gras

A paté made from goose or duck liver and is a common French food that is now becoming popular in the U.S.

Bad Ethics: Birds are force-fed with steel pipes rammed down their throats. The animals suffer injuries, tear out their own feathers and eat each other from the stress.

Replace With: lentil-walnut paté, hummus or white bean puree

Shark Fins

A "royal delicacy" that is found in Asian soups despite the unpopular criticism in Asia. There is an estimated 75 million sharks killed each year which threatens the future of several important species. Even more, obtaining the shark fins is extremely cruel.

Bad Ethics: Sharks are caught, their fins are cut off, and their mutilated bodies are then tossed back into the ocean where they bleed to death, drown or are eaten by other animals.

Replace With: soups loaded with veggies and herbs

Veal

Veal is baby cow meat. The baby cows farmed for meat come from the dairy industry which treats its animals with unyielding cruelty.

Bad Ethics: Cows are constantly pregnant in order to produce milk and newborn baby cows. The babies are then taken from their mothers and forced into veal stalls that are too small for standing or movement. These farmed cows live in darkness while their muscles atrophy which makes them too weak to stand. When they are led to slaughter, many are trampled because their muscles are too weak after months of abuse.

Replace With: seitan (made from wheat gluten, mimics the taste and texture of meat) or tempeh (made from soybeans - just like tofu!)

Eggs

Commercial eggs have a high ethical cost. The majority of commercially farmed eggs come from ~300 million chickens living in battery cages. These cages are criminally small (45,72×50,8 cm) and hold between 5 to 10 birds at a time.

Bad Ethics: Most birds never experience spreading their wings while in captivity. The physical and mental stress leads the birds to violent fighting and cannibalism. Many suffer through major injuries and illnesses. Additionally, most commercially farmed eggs come from birds that are injected with hormones and chemicals that contribute to the unsustainable practices of industrial agriculture.

Replace With: locally sourced free-range, organic eggs that you can verify are sourced humanely, organic tofu, and chia or flax seed gel for baking

Pork

Did you know that pigs are even more intelligent than dogs? But because we see them as food, we oftentimes dismiss their personalities and livelihoods. Sadly, pigs are hyper-aware of the pain and suffering they endure when being farmed as food.

Bad Ethics: Mother pigs live in gestation crates that are too small for movement or even standing. Pigs are also constantly impregnated until their bodies give out. The newborn piglets are taken away after just the bare minimum of nursing.

Replace With: plant proteins like beans, lentils and nuts, tempeh bacon (which is made from soybeans) and Tofurky sausage

Dairy

Need milk? Not really! In reality, humans do not need animal milk to live healthy and nutritious lives. However, the dairy industry continues to dominate the marketing of animal milk as a necessity. Even worse is the industry's treatment of animals to produce milk products.

Bad Ethics: Cows are constantly and forcefully inseminated. Their young babies are taken away and many are killed young to be sold as veal. The majority of cows are not milked by hand; they are tethered to harsh mechanical machines that infect their udders and cause severe pain. Many cows in the US are treated with antibiotics that contribute to unsustainable agricultural practices.

Replace With: milk from coconuts, almonds or rice; or animal milk from a verified small-scale local organic dairy producer that treats their cows ethically

Lobster

Lobster is a staple to the seafood lover's diet. They are also intelligent and social creatures can live up to 100 years. Unfortunately, more than 20 million lobsters are killed each year for food.

Bad Ethics: When lobsters are captured, their complex nervous systems are very sensitive to pain. Even when they are alive and being cut open or dropped into boiling water, lobsters suffer through all of that pain.

Replace With: fungi varieties - like the lobster mushroom - that are meaty and buttery with slight seafood flavoring

These companies are among the worst because they aggressively dominate peoples' access to food worldwide, our ability to produce it, the integrity of local agriculture, and even what constitutes "food" in the first place.

Nestlé

The world's largest food and beverages company.

Bad Ethics: It dangerously markets its products to vulnerable and marginalized communities, uses child labor for ingredient harvesting, and uses many environmentally unsustainable practices.

Coca-Cola

One of the largest food and beverage companies in the entire world.

Bad Ethics: Has one of the most horrific environmental and workers' rights records that includes aggressive human exploitation and environmental exploitation.

Monsanto

Most known for its association with insecticides, herbicides, and defoliants, DDT, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and even Agent Orange (used in the Vietnam War).

Bad Ethics: Monsanto pushes for unsustainable and dangerous agriculture practices.

If you found this post useful, you might want to save THIS PIN below to your Ethical Food Tips board on Pinterest.

SOURCES: Organic Authority, CBI EU

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11 Most Unethical Foods And Food Brands (+replacements) | Human of Impact

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Palm oil is an edible oil derived from the pulp of fruits of the oil palm. It is used in margarine, shortening, cooking oil, soups, sauces, crackers, and other baked goods. After soybean oil, it is the world's most widely used oil.